1. Field of the Invention
The disclosures discussed herein relate to a technology to facilitate connections of external apparatuses to a secure local area network (LAN).
2. Description of the Related Art
Organizations such as corporations generally construct local area networks (hereinafter called “internal organization LANs) to allow information processing apparatuses to mutually connect to one another within the organizations via the LANs. The organizations further construct internal organization LANs to allow members belonging to the organizations to have their information processing apparatuses connected to the internal organization LANs via wireless LANs, which enables the members to have their information processing apparatuses access various apparatuses such as multifunction printers and projector apparatuses connected to the internal organization LANs.
The internal organization LAN and the wireless LAN connected to the internal organization LAN generally perform authentication processes on external apparatuses to only allow the successfully authenticated external apparatuses to access various apparatuses connected to the internal organization LAN and the wireless LAN. Patent Document 1 discloses a technology to perform authentication using unique user information or an active directory to allow users to access MFPs connected to a network.
The following assumes a case where users who are outsiders of an organization attempt to access an apparatus (e.g., a projector apparatus) connected to the internal organization LAN. Most information processing apparatuses of such outside users are not allowed to connect to the organization LAN in view of security. The outside users are thus not allowed to access various apparatuses residing in the organization via the organization LAN or are required to access various apparatuses in the organization via a legacy connection, which may inconvenience the outside users.
Such a related art technology may require the legacy connection such as a video graphics array (VGA) or a digital visual interface (DVI) for an outside user of the organization to use a projector apparatus residing within the organization. This may take a great deal of time such as preparing a connection cable for the legacy connection, and inconvenience the outside user.
There is also proposed in the related art a method of establishing a specific guest network for temporarily allowing outside users of an organization to a LAN. Implementing this method may require reconstruction and resetting the network architectural and operational levels such as dividing a logical network using a virtual LAN (VLAN). Further, the frequency of using the guest network is generally low, which indicates continuously establishing a hardly used guest-specific network. This may lead to inefficiency in cost or electric power consumption.
In addition, a guest-specific wireless LAN requires a laborious task of teaching the outside user settings of the guest-specific wireless LAN, which virtually has no security setting involving a handwritten or orally communicated password or the like. This may expose the wireless LAN communications via a guest terminal to a security threat such as eavesdropping.
Moreover, when temporarily allowed connection to the LAN from the outside user is left as it is without releasing the temporarily allowed connection, the outside user is continuously allowed to connect to the organization LAN via that terminal. This may have a risk of allowing a third party to accidentally connect to the organization LAN.